Our Ten Most Amazing Sporting Moments Of 2021 – Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our article where we continue to look back on the best sporting events of 2021, this time counting down the top five sports events and results of the year that truly amazed and inspired us.

To recap, in our previous article we had made the following choices for numbers 10 to 6 in our list:

• 10^th – Tom Brady Wins The Super Bowl With The Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• 9^th – Cristiano Ronaldo Re-Signs For Manchester United
• 8^th – Chelsea win the Champions League
• 7^th – The United States of America dominate and win the Ryder Cup
• 6^th – Lionel Messi inspires Argentina to Copa America victory.

We are now going to continue that countdown now with the top five amazing events of the year and remember, any odds shown in the article for future betting markets were correct with bet365 Sport at the time of writing, but may have changed in the meantime.

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Let’s now continue our countdown by moving into the top five events of the year, beginning with one of the most sensational performances in Olympic history by any athlete.

5. Elaine Thompson-Herah’s Incredible Sprint Olympic Double-Double Gold

Back at the 2016 Olympic Games, Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah proved to be something of a surprise when she won not only the 100m, but also the 200m for a double gold medal. However, by 2020, the likes of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Dina Asher-Smith were regarded to be amongst the form athletes heading into the tournament.

Indeed, many experts felt that Thompson-Herah would do well to claim any sort of medal from either race as she hadn’t showed any form leading into the Olympics that seemed to make her a massive threat to her rivals.

However, she dominated both sprint events, setting a new Olympic Record of 10.61 seconds in the 100m, the second-fastest time of all time by a woman and then was just 0.19 seconds outside of the Olympic and World record in the 200m final, winning by a comfortable margin.

She is the first woman to ever win the 100m-200m double gold at two consecutive Olympic Games.

4. Max Verstappen Wins F1 Driver’s Championship In Controversial Circumstances

This only happened last weekend but proved to be one of the most controversial sporting moments of the year and certainly the most controversial finish to a F1 season in history. Forget Senna taking off Prost in 1990, the 2021 F1 season will always be the season where Lewis Hamilton lost out on the title due to race director Michael Masi.

With both Hamilton and Max Verstappen heading into this final race level on points, whoever finished in front of the other would be world champion. Verstappen qualified on pole, but in the race Hamilton had opened up a considerable gap on the Red Bull Driver, who looked to have little chance to reign him in over the last five laps.

It looked like a formality for Hamilton, but then everything changed. Nicolas Latifi crashed his Williams causing a safety car, Max Verstappen hopped into the pits under the safety car to put on new tyres and came out with five back markers between himself and Hamilton.

Having already lost a significant time advantage due to the safety car, Hamilton was then stunned to hear the race director allow the five cars to unlap themselves, allowing Verstappen to close right up behind Hamilton with one lap of the race remaining.

On better tyres, Verstappen easily passed Hamilton to claim the win, but it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of F1 fans that the title was decided this way.

3. England Reach Final Of Euros But Fall To Italy

The 2020 Euros were delayed by a year but when the tournament did take place, England produced their best ever performance in the competition, reaching the final.

The Three Lions started slowly, winning two and drawing one of their Group Games, but then their tournament really got underway with a huge win over Germany in the Round of 16. That 2-0 win was followed by a comfortable 4-0 win over the Ukraine and then a tight and nervy 2-1 win over a fantastic Denmark side.

Italy, on a long unbeaten run, would be England’s opponents in the final but just three minutes in, Luke Shaw put England in front. However, Italy then gained possession of the game and in the second half, Leonardo Bonucci equalised.

Penalties followed and misses by Rashford, Sancho and Saka meant the Italians claimed the trophy.

2. Emma Raducanu Wins Women’s US Open As A Qualifier

At Wimbledon in 2021, Emma Raducanu produced some sensational tennis as young qualifier to reach the fourth round of the tournament. She was already being hailed as the future of women’s tennis in the UK, but what followed stunned everybody in the world.

Not seeded in the US Open, Raducanu entered qualifying and beat three players in straight sets to earn a place in the first round draw. From then on she stunned the world defeating a number of top ranked stars, including fourth seed Belinda Bencic and eighth seed Maria Sakkari to reach the final.

Every victory was in straight sets and Raducanu produced a stunning performance to beat Leylah Fernandez of Canada 6-4, 6-3 to claim the title.

She became the first qualifier in the open era to win a Grand Slam title, the first tennis star to win a Grand Slam event in only their second appearance at just such a tournament. Previous to 2021, Raducanu had earned just over $29,500 in three years on the WTA tour. With her US Open Grand Slam alone, she earned over $2,000,000.  She is now ranked 19^th in the world.

1. Tyson Fury Defeats Deontay Wilder to Defend his WBC World Heavyweight Title

The trilogy of fights between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury had always been exciting and controversial, ever since the first fight was deemed to be a tie, although many experts felt that Fury had won that bout.

A second fight ensued and this time, Fury made no mistake, knocking out Wilder to claim the win and earn back the WBC Heavyweight World Title.

Wilder invoked his clause for a rematch after his defeat to Fury and the third fight took place this year and produced arguably the most incredible heavyweight title fight in history.

A quick start saw Wilder initially the aggressor, but Fury began to pressure his opponent and near the end of the third, he caught Wilder and knocked him to the ground.

As Fury sensed a stoppage in the fourth, he put pressure on Wilder but was caught with a shot to the temple, which knocked Fury over. Sensing he could now put Fury away, Wilder piled on the pressure and knocked Fury down again. The Gypsy King beat both counts however and managed to see out the dramatic round.

Wilder tried to carry on the pressure in the fifth, but Fury had recovered and slowly the Champion began to dominate the fight winning the following four rounds and then in the 11^th a heavy right hand send Wilder sprawling on the floor. The Challenger beat the count, but Fury piled on the pressure and after landing several clean shots, another right hand sent Wilder to the ground, with the referee waving off the fight.

Wilder’s next opponent is not known, but Fury looks set to defend his belt against either Oleksandr Usyk to unify the division, or the mandatory WBC Challenger Dillian Whyte.

Those were our top ten sporting moments of 2021. I hope you enjoyed going back over them and we wish you a very enjoyable, merry and safe Christmas!